At last, the client was able to hire Raúl Sánchez Architects to give the space a new lease on life. That required ripping out almost everything inside and starting from scratch, maintaining only the facades, dividing walls, and roof slab. As hard as it was to get past all of these hurdles, the slow progression gave the architects a few striking moments of inspiration. They began to see the building as a vessel for what would become its defining feature: a stunning four-story spiral staircase at its heart.

“The construction process, slow and complex, at least allowed decisions to be made as the essence of the estate was revealed with the demolitions,” they explain. “Thus, once all the floors slabs had been demolished and the building was seen as a slender and tall prism formed by walls with a completely heterogeneous composition of all kinds of bricks and stones arranged without apparent order or composition, the idea of leaving all these walls exposed became conceptual: these four walls, over 15 meters high, are a museum of the building’s history, where any trace of its construction (arches, lintels, stairs, and beams), and of its use (mortar remains, furnishings, claddings) will be left unaltered, exposed in all its crudeness.”

When putting in the floors for the three upper levels, the architects chose not to extend them all the way to the original brick walls. Instead, they placed sheets of glass in between, creating a four-story void looking all the way up to the roof. Not only does this help transmit daylight through the home, it continually draws attention to the sculptural beauty of the staircase as you ascend.

The juxtaposition of the smooth spiral staircase with the textural original brick is what makes the space sing. Left exposed and visible, the remnants of the building’s past hint at a complex history that seems even more remarkable when placed beside new elements like the gleaming brass kitchen suite. The kitchen was placed on the ground floor and a bathroom lined with lacquered wood on the second.

The architects add: “In terms of materiality, a certain refinement has been pursued in the new elements to be implemented, in opposition to the crude expressiveness of the existing walls, conscious that the space must house a home. Thus, the kitchen is a frosted brass piece of furniture, shiny and with reflections, with a white marble top; the bathroom equipment is paneled with lacquered wood in a slightly cream color, with black and brass details; the ‘headboards’ of the floors are covered in white microcement; the hydraulic mosaic, microcement, and oak floors add warmth and color to the interior; and the lacquered wood ceilings incorporate registers and grids to ‘design’ these needs.”

Service elements like the electric cables, air conditioning system, and telephone wires are routed within six steel tubes running vertically along one wall, themselves forming another interesting visual element. The other levels have been left mostly empty so the occupants can use them as bedrooms, offices, or anything else they like without restrictions.

Outside, the tall and narrow home maintains its historic charm, complete with balconies at every level, but the architects added what might be one of the coolest front doors you’ve ever seen. Made of three different kinds of aluminum, it features a graphic rhomboid-based design in a tribute to the traditional tile motifs found inside.

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Sometimes a home is simply too far gone or too eclectically assembled to ‘save’ as it is – a restoration would simply seem kitschy and false. So what do you do when you want to preserve historical elements of your hodgepodge home while rebuilding it to be your dream house? This strange Chicago residence is at once a tribute to the history of the house and neighborhood while also existing as a radical aesthetic departure from its context.

At first glance one would never guess that the core of this house dates back to the 1880s, when it was originally a stable. It was slowly added to over the years, accumulating piecemeal wood and brick additions, extensions and reconstructions that eventually led it to being an actual home. This most recent and remarkable set of changes has resulted in something hardly recognizable yet still tied to its roots.

By the time the current owners decided they would like to restore some kind of original form there were too many iterations to choose from and too little structure to safely preserve. As a result, they commissioned Studio Gang Architects to create a stunning gray brick screen around the home and held onto what few rooms and structural elements they could in the core of the house.

“The ‘Brick-Weave’ House sits on the footprint of a century-old stable in Chicago’s West Side. With a modest budget, the owners hoped to salvage the entire building until hidden fire damage was uncovered. Strategically cutting away damage and weaving in new construction allowed 30% of the original structure to be reused. Front walls and roof were removed, creating a garden surrounded by a porous “brick-weave” screen that demonstrates a sensibility in the use of traditional materials in new and surprising ways.”

“Variation in ceiling heights and floor levels weaves together the two-story garden at the front of the house with the single-story volume at the back through a cascading section.”

“The screen animates the garden and interior with dappled sunlight, establishing a visual connection to and from the street. Rectangular voids in the screen throw hexagonal patterns of light inside. At night, the pattern reverses: the screen becomes a lantern.”

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Classic collides with contemporary and historic meets modern under the roof of one unbelievably cool townhouse property – part infill project, part retrofit, part adaptive reuse, this is a dream space filled with secret rooms for people who love cozy remodeled lofts and private luxury interiors all at the same time.

Looking at it from the outside, you’d never guess what this unassuming exterior holds. This unusual remodel project proves you should never judge a book by its cover.

Beneath peeling paint and crumbling red bricks on the front of this historic row-house facade lies an incredible residence, reinforced with stunning steel supports and remodeled inside and out with modern materials, furniture and fixtures.

Along the roof, a movable glass enclosure creates a pleasantly-ambiguous indoor-and-outdoor area that bridges the open gap in the (elongated and narrow) plan from front to back, resulting in something that works as an exterior garden or interior greenhouse.

New wood shelving stretches from wall to wall in the renovated structure, while industrial metal bookcases and staircases line the spaces and pierce from one room to the next.

Exposed wood beams and rafters, worn red brick and metal pipe railings manage to combine a sense of coziness and warmth with an overall mixed industrial, somewhat harsh and cold aesthetic.

The bedroom, bathroom and kitchen all contain a strange combination of old and new – raw and rustic furnishings and bare-bone fixtures alongside the latest appliances and clean contemporary additions to otherwise retro areas.

Photographed by Dujardin Filip, House 43 by the firm OWI / Office for Word and Image may be have one of the most impressive interiors ever created within an unassuming and humble townhouse shell – a series of rooms that mix old and new in ways that are both clever and classy, appealing to architecture lovers of all kinds.

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New York City maintains stringent building regulations to preserve the facades of its historic landmark buildings, requiring any rooftop additions to be set back far enough to be invisible from street level. This rule applies to all the luxurious penthouse gardens, terraces, swimming pools and greenhouses that have sprouted up on the city’s rooftops for over a century, but as developers look to add more square footage to the densely populated urban center, they’re increasingly creating an exclusive ’stealth’ version of the city, full of modern structures.

A jagged loft addition recently completed by the firm WORKac serves as a dramatic example of what might be too far above your head to notice. Named ‘The Stealth Building,’ the hidden structure adds a three-story penthouse to the roof of one of Tribeca’s oldest cast iron facades. The addition is hidden from view not only due to its height, but also by the flat, windowless walls of adjacent structures.



An abandoned elevator bulkhead and the architectural ‘crown’ projecting from the top of the facade shield the penthouse’s private terrace and its full-height glazing from residents of buildings across the street, while the mountain-inspired zig-zag roof shape concentrates views of city landmarks through the glass walls in the rear of the structure. The former elevator bulkhead is now a private enclosure for the rooftop hot tub, opening onto the deck.

Unlike other penthouse projects that add a single-family residence to the rooftop of an existing structure, this one creates new spaces for residents of the luxury apartments below. The rooftop penthouse is part of a larger renovation for the entire building at 93 Reade Street, which boasts one of the city’s most beautiful cast iron facades.
“For the apartment interiors and the public area, WORKac created spaces that combine nature-inspired elements and systems with new ideas about urban living,” say the architects. “From the tessellated green all at the lobby to generous planters and balconies at the second, sixth and seventh floors, connections to the outdoors are emphasized… the penthouse combines sleeping spaces and a family room within the old fifth floor of the building with new entertaining and dining spaces under the new roof at the sixth floor.”

This new layout also integrates a series of glassed-in atriums stretching from the rooftop down to the second level, encouraging daylight to penetrate deep into the building’s interior. Around each of these atriums, a built-in volume made of wood creates a sort of apartment within an apartment, with a lofted lounge and greenery.


“Within each apartment, a ‘third space’ between bedrooms and living spaces is created at the top of the volume containing storage and bathrooms,” the architects explain. “Less than four-feet high, this ‘bonsai apartment’ is outfitted with a futon, seating areas, and an herb garden above the kitchen. Its main feature is a fern garden connected to the master shower below. Steam from the shower collects on the glass walls of the garden and waters the plants.”

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In its previous life, the home housed animals on the ground level and humans on the two upper floors. This was obvious in its dark and impractical layout. When rebuilding the interior, the architects were careful to use materials appropriate to the area and to the home itself. They left the existing stone and added light colored cross-laminated timber to create an entirely new living space.


Upon stepping into the home, the most striking feature is a three-story atrium exposing all three levels of wooden staircases. This space is beautifully light and open. It visually connects all areas of the home to the entryway, creating an inviting feeling and a lovely functional focal point.


The first floor is an open floor plan containing the living area, kitchen, and dining room. A bright white fireplace visually unites the open space; its black flue slithers all the way up the stone wall to exit through the timber-clad ceiling. The upper stories contain the bedrooms and other private rooms, all of which are accessed via wooden walkways that overlook the atrium and receive natural light from windows and skylights.

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In the Spanish town of A Coruña, OCO Studio built a spacious sun-filled home. With the liberal use of glass and open space, the home’s visual space is increased tremendously. From the street, the stone house looks traditional, much like the homes that surround it. The interior, however, is more modern, spacious and flexible enough that it could be used as a family home or a mixed-use residential and studio space.

The home’s open plan allows light to enter from all directions and to pass through the house at all angles. The stairs have no risers to allow more light to penetrate the interior of the home.

The public areas of the home appear to have double height thanks to the strategic placement of skylights and an open glass mezzanine. Stone walls add rustic charm to the otherwise-modern interior. But a modern slate wall opposite the fireplace – complete with randomly placed circular cutouts – blends with that rustic element and acts as another means for light to freely flow through the home.

Part of the floor in the main living area is composed of laminated glass. This allows light to pass freely down to the ground level. This level is home to a large storage area with lighted opaque glass and a beautifully bright polished stone floor.

The very top level houses an open mezzanine with a spacious slanted ceiling. The skylights in the home’s roof and the high mezzanine windows connect the main level of the home and the mezzanine, with light passing through the glass dividing wall and down into the living area.

“It is a house between medians, low plus a floor and undercover, in which the section is considered the fundamental element for the configuration of the space, although it was already in the configuration prior to this rehabilitation. That is, the spatial structure of the pre-existing building is maintained almost entirely, but double-height spaces are created, free heights are corrected, spaces are cleaned and an axis of natural light is created that crosses the housing in its main body from east to west, from the access doors and through the staircase. Which does not have risers to promote this visual axis.”

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Cavernous, curving interiors filled with built-in niches and furniture are more often associated with houses sculpted from cob and other natural building materials than with apartments in suburbia. But design firm The White Room has managed to recreate that sculptural, organic feel in a Mumbai-area apartment with lots of amorphous surfaces.

The result is a bright, airy interior that’s almost entirely white with a few pops of color in the form of wood furniture, a stunning natural dining surface built into the wall and custom tile in a pale blue-green. The ceiling is high and rounded, and nearly all of the doorways are arched.

It’s a fusion of traditional earth-based building aesthetics and modern design, all within a suburban setting. The curves extend all the way to the closets and a creatively tiled bathroom reminiscent of the inside of a sea shell.

“This studio apartment is designed for a young couple and is a composition of twin long vaults,” say the architects. “One housing the living space and the other the master suite. These spaces are connected to each other through smaller vaults and arched openings carving out spaces for kitchen, wardrobe and bathrooms. The spaces flow seamlessly into each other, creating an integrated whole and giving the feel of a sculpted greek cavern.”

“The White room studio is built on the basic principles of exploring the bare beauty of materials. Here the focus has always been on exploring innovative ways of approaching fundamental problems of space, proportion, light and materials. The way in which a wall meets a floor, or how a door fits into a wall, flush or proud, are not mere details, they are as much architecture as the planning of a sequence of rooms in a gallery, or the composition of a facade. We consider architecture, of all the arts, as the one that most depends for its expressive power on rubbing up against the gritty constraints of every day life.”

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An old, slightly run-down industrial loft in Brussels received a modern makeover from Belgian architecture firm adn Architectures. The designers added two light, airy volumes to the space to segment it without adding too much visual weight while taking advantage of the high ceilings. The finished space is called FOR, and it is a surprisingly bright and comfortable home.

Both form and function were kept as simple and straightforward as possible. Along one of the long walls, a built-in storage area keeps the residents’ belongings hidden away behind bright white doors. The loft’s other long wall is home to a simple, low-sitting kitchen setup.

The two elevated volumes are home to an office and a bedroom which sit on either side of a central eating area. Their metallic mesh walls keep these rooms connected to the rest of the loft space, but hidden enough that they still feel like private, separate rooms.

The real stars of this interior redesign are the unusual stairs leading up to the two elevated rooms. They are made of folded steel and cantilevered to appear almost as though they are floating. Their passive presence in the loft makes them almost melt into the second-story “towers.”

The architects and their clients set out to create a simple space that contained four walls and some windows, and would fulfill the basic needs to sleep, wash, eat, and relax. They did this by keeping the colors neutral, the materials simple, and the space open and attached to its industrial roots – and they also managed to make the home an elegant and comfortable space to live.

“The three pieces of furniture then structure and give function to the remaining space : a long kitchen cabinet in a narrow space between the entrance and the laundry room, a wall of storage near the entrance and a library in the more intimate space that leads to the balcony.”

“The materials are polyurethane screed for the floor; solid or perforated metal for the structuring elements, stratified MDF for the furniture, with a paint finish to exacerbate the texture of the various materials.  The ceiling is kept as is to remind of the pre-existing unified volume.”

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Set on the aged streets of an old hillside in Spain, this wedge-shaped property is both enticing but complex – it meets streets and sidewalks at various levels and features almost no normal ninety-degree angles.

ADI Arquitectura was tasked with bringing the dwelling up to speed and expanding it vertically while leaving its history intact and working within the strange confines of its peculiar plot.

Their exterior redesign carefully remixes materials and colors that are a match for the surroundings, respectfully befitting such a prominently visible intersection, while selectively adding more contemporary and minimal window openings, balconies and doors.

A similar approach on the interior yields a lovely play of contrasts between light brick and dark wood, gray slate and white walls, clearly expressing the distinction between old and new while making the place functional for its residents.

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A former industrial facility in France’s capital city was reinvented by interior architect Grégoire De Lafforest, going from a wide open 1,100 square feet to a creative, completely unique loft. Although the architect has worked with some of the most high-end brands in the world, he used some clever cost-saving measures to create this striking Paris warehouse makeover on a reasonable budget.

Despite the rather limited space, Lafforest segmented the loft into six distinct zones that he refers to as “a village of six small houses.” The kitchen and living area are located under an A-frame glass ceiling that fills the loft with natural light. As a continuation of the glass aesthetic, the kitchen is enclosed in a DIY greenhouse. Inside, an all-black IKEA kitchen is a gorgeous modern place to prepare meals.

The one element that is nearly impossible to miss is the huge pine tree in the middle of the living area. Lafforest cut and dried the branches, then meticulously glued plastic needles to them. The tree emphasizes and expands the theme of outdoors and nature without actually dealing with a growing tree in the living room.

Budget-friendly IKEA furniture and fixtures were used in the loft, giving it a modern flair with subtle pops of color. A wall ledge sits three feet above the floor in the living area to support pictures and objects. Beneath the ledge, rectangular IKEA storage units act as independent bookcases.

Interesting surfaces, small highlights of color and the occasional simple pattern keep the loft from looking too sterile. This Parisian home is a testament to the fact that, with some creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, even people with smaller budgets can create stunning home spaces.

About Grégoire De Lafforest

“An interior architect and designer by training (graduated from ESAG Penninghen), Grégoire went through the agency of Bruno Moinard, Noé Duchaufour Lawrence and Gilles & Boissier where he was able to work on major projects such as the head office from Hermès in Paris, the Cartier boutiques, a private mansion for Veuve Clicquot and more recently the Baccarat hotel in New York. He is currently collaborating with Hermès for the design of furniture collections. At the same time, he develops his own interior design and furniture projects which earned him the VIA laureate in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and the “Talent de l’Elegance” laureate at the Sommet du Luxe et de Creation 2017.”

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